Pegasus Society for Korean Studies 왕 classes

yay~! First of all, I’d like to thank Kat for telling me about the free skype classes ^^ It’s been a long while since I had any kind of formal lessons, and the first time I’m trying out a skype class (we use voice call). They have 3 different types of classes: GoGo, Push It! and 왕 (in order of difficulty). I signed up for the 왕 classes. I’m not too sure if they will accept any new students since the classes are well in progress, but you can access the homework and lesson materials HERE.

My head is a jumble of thoughts now, so I’ll try to breakdown the review into smaller parts

The teacher

Allan is real good, and a real cool guy! He sounds native and he was able to conduct the entire lesson in Korean. If you look at the syllabus for 왕 classes, you would know that it’s no mean feat to be able to conduct a class like that. He’s good with his explanations too. It’s one thing to be good in Korean and another thing to be able to teach it well. Allan is good in both!

The lesson materials

Love the lesson materials!! You can tell that there’s alot of effort put into creating the exercises, choosing the dialogues etc. Not too sure if they take it out from textbooks etc, but overall, the materials were engaging and challenging. Each lesson revolves around one/two fixed topics and they really go in depth. I feel that I’m already learning alot by preparing for it beforehand!

The lessons

Skype lessons can’t be compared to normal classroom lessons. It’s good that the class consist only of two students (me and Jeannie), so we get ample time to respond, answer or voice our opinions. It will be harder in a large class, as the chances of talking will be greatly reduced. Also, it’s a voice call so it’s hard to differentiate between many voices and accidental interruptions are more likely to occur. We follow the materials quite strictly but not in very great details. We managed to finish 2 chapters within 2 hours!! omg. So it’s definitely a great idea to prepare beforehand. (:

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I didn’t know we were going to cover so much, so I only prepared for lesson 1. So it was a breeze. I was a bundle of nerves when we reached the 2nd chapter. But luckily, it was a topic that I was quite familiar with (봉사 활동), so I knew quite alot of the words. But it was a little scary as Allan decided to go through the entire list with us, asking us for the meaning of each word. It’s tough to explain them in Korean, so I opt for English sometimes. Most of those words were hanja, so I kept thinking in Chinese instead.

I learnt alot of new words though the lesson~! ^^ I can remember them alot better when Allan went through the list with us. 😀

The homework is… 장난 아니야. sorry, that was the most apt expression I could find. But I’m pretty happy (: Korean homework doesn’t feel like homework at all, just a challenge and something really enjoyable. We have to do translation (Eng to Korean!!!) and also write a one page essay. cool 😀

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I finally got to hear Jeannie’s voice and we even had a short video call after our lesson! 😀 yay~! ^^ 목소리 예뻐요~~ Jeannie is one of the first few people I got to know through this blog and I’m looking forward to the day we can meet in person!